life lesson

The other day I did something that put me pretty high up in the ranks of "Meanest Mom Ever!" And I can write this post now because she doesn't read my blog yet. 

My kids and I had met my mom and my niece at Starbucks. After being there for almost an hour, boredom and grumpiness got the best of my daughter. (This is not unusual for her. Boredom. Grumpiness. Both are issues that I'm constantly working on with her because 1.) sometimes life is boring: figure out how to deal with it now because there will always be moments of boredom in your life and 2.) grumpiness is a choice: even if you are pre-disposed to a negative outlook on life, you can still choose to try to look for the good.) 

My daughter was sitting at a small table off to my left when I glanced at her and noticed she was writing something. At first I thought it was on a napkin, but as I stood up to look closer, I noticed she was scratching something into the surface of the tabletop. 

Now, I haven't had a specifics conversation about "not scratching the tops of tables at Starbucks," but I have had plenty of conversations about keeping our tabletops at home clean, not writing on them or scratching them so I'm pretty sure I had covered that lesson completely enough, so you could say I was a bit irritated seeing this. 

I promptly took her outside and had a conversation about defacing other people's property. It wasn't a long conversation, but I'm pretty sure she got the point because the consequence of her actions was one she'll never want to repeat.

I made her go up to the counter and apologize to the manager for what she did. Oh, the embarrassment!!

Now before you decide to critique my parenting technique, let me just explain a few things. First of all, there was no one else in line and nobody but the manager heard our conversation. I did not make a big production out of it. I believe in owning up to your wrongdoings, but not in utter public humiliation. Also, I did much of the talking to explain to the manager that I wanted my daughter to learn a lesson about this situation. We offered to do whatever was needed to repair the table (which is honestly kind of funny because the tabletop was such a mess of scratches anyway...but it was the point of the whole thing, ya know?!) And in humility, my daughter apologized. She was forgiven and we left Starbucks.

After we left, she was pretty upset with me. Until we got home, and then she broke down with a contrite heart. Lesson learned. Hugs and kisses abounded.

I know this was difficult for my girl to do. But it was difficult for me too! As a mom, I was embarrassed by her behavior. And it felt like a reflection of my parenting skills. It would have been easier for us to just leave it. No one would have known...except Jayne and me. But that was enough. Now I know she'll think twice before making a foolish decision that might have steeper consequences than just scratching a tabletop. 

But perhaps the bigger lesson is this: teaching her how to own up to her wrongdoings and making them right. Pride is a big deal to many people. But humility is a bigger deal to God. 

KC